Pregnant in the backcountry
Hi! I'm Grace Evans and this is Dry Spell, my weekly monthly letter of off-season reflections on canoeing.
I had booked a seven day canoe trip in March. When I discovered I was pregnant in May, I calculated how pregnant I would be by the trip: 20 weeks.
What did that mean? Could I still go on the trip? Over and over again I read that pregnant people should “take it easy and don’t push yourself” when it comes to exercise. The advice was that I should be able to do what I’m already comfortable doing; it was not the time to pick up a new challenging athletic activity. My stamina would gradually decrease as my pregnancy continued.
But “don’t push yourself” wasn’t very precise or descriptive, especially when I only had one season of canoeing behind me. Obviously I hadn’t paddled all winter - I was out of shape at the start of a new season. I would push myself on a backcountry canoe trip.
So I wanted a more specific guideline. In Emily Oster’s evidence and data-based pregnancy book Expecting Better, she stresses that exercise where physical trauma is possible or likely should probably be avoided, activities such as skiing, rock climbing or tackle football.
“There is also some evidence that exercising really hard during pregnancy could (very temporarily, during the period of exercise) compromise blood flow to the baby,” Oster writes. “In one study of Olympic-level athletes, researchers found that when women exercised so hard that they pushed their heart rate to more than 90 percent of their maximum, there was some decreased blood flow to the baby.”
This clarified my concerns for me. A lot of pregnancy guides are vague and abstract, so my fears had been too. After reading Oster I was able to identify that I needed to be careful around getting hurt (slipping, falling, sunstroke). Even the idea of “pushing myself too hard” became more clear; I could watch my heartrate. But knowing that if I were to push myself to the absolute limit, I might restrict some blood flow to the baby, made me realize that I could simply stop what I was doing. I took a lot of comfort in this.
I reached out to Tori Baird, a paddler who runs canoeing courses near Parry Sound, who echoed what Emily Oster’s book advised. “I think the major concerns are slipping and falling, and the loosening of ligaments, so just be careful,” she wrote to me. “Taking your time and not over doing it and really paying attention to your body and how you’re feeling is important.”
I paddled around my local marsh, the trippers and I went and took an ORCKA course. My pregnancy progressed without any complications and happily my second trimester was amazing and full of energy. One of my friends mentioned that often someone is either pregnant or pumping while on the annual women's canoe trip she attends, so there were people out there doing it. Searching the internet I found several forums with discussions from women wondering the same questions I was, receiving typed reassurances from each other. I read the blog of a woman who went canoe camping one week before she gave birth. But if I’d figured out my other concerns, getting hurt, pushing too hard, the one I didn’t have control over was: what if something went wrong?
Two weeks before the trip the other paddlers admitted they were also feeling daunted by our ambitious route for our second trip. Despite high demand for Ontario Parks reservations there was some wiggle room and I was able to alter the route from 6 days of travel in a 7 day period, to 4 days of travel in a 7 day period. One of the other trippers ended up borrowing a satellite phone as an added assurance.
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By the time we reached our campsite on the first day my back ached. It hurt a little the second day, but then I seemed to acclimate. I mostly felt great, and even sleeping on the ground didn’t bother me. One evening I laid in the hammock feeling queasy while the others cooked and then delivered to me a perfectly folded burrito. One morning I vomited, only managing to walk a few feet from our outdoor kitchen before I retched. As I knelt in the pine needles, each hand grasping a moss covered rock while I threw up into a divot, I thought about how it was the loveliest place I’d been sick.
To make myself more comfortable, I brought an additional sleeping pad and used it for everything - as a cushion on a canoe seat, to lie on the ground reading, for stretching, to sit on an uneven rock and watch the sunset, as a second layer under my air mattress, and to soften rough wooden benches that furnish some backcountry sites. I brought different clothes - my husband's SPF quick dry shirts, a pair of too-big quick dry pants that I had neglected to return pre-pregnancy, and stretchy high-waisted bike shorts. Paranoid about falling on slippery rocks, when I swam I wore sandals and a lifejacket and plunged right in to suspend myself at the waterline.
My friends carried everything during the eight portages we crossed. I would get the paddles, the smallest backpack and my dog Dash and do one trip and then lounge on the ground with our gear while the others made two trips. On the portage between Burnt Island Lake and Little Otterslide, my friend Emily was struggling with the canoe so I offered to give it a try. I portaged about 500 m of the 790 m before I decided I should trade off. A woman, dressed in white sweat-wicking tank top and shirt, came upon us on her way back to the Burnt Island side. She asked if we needed help and I said no: “I just wanted to see if I could still do it.” “Whoa, are you pregnant?” she said, looking down at my waist. When I said yes she said: “Wow, what a powerful woman.” I thanked her and helped Emily get the canoe on her shoulders. I laughed in my head, because my friends were carrying far more than me and making two trips each time. She just caught me on one of my two portages.
We got to stay on a stunning campsite on Otterslide Lake for four nights, but ultimately our altered route did not provide a shorter total kilometer count. We did a day trip to Big Trout Lake up Otterslide Creek, which entailed four portages of varying terrain on an extremely hot day (bringing our total portage count from eight to 16). The creek was quiet and beautiful; on the way out I felt the baby move as I paddled, and on the way back we saw a lone female moose. I definitely pushed myself more that day than any other time canoeing. I remember carrying Dash and four paddles up the steepest incline at one of the portages on the way back, hearing my heart beating and my face feeling so hot. I stopped and took a break.
I did another trip with my brother and my friend Abeer in September when I was 23 weeks pregnant. We were only going to venture 14 kilometers in and I was familiar with the route so I wasn’t worried this time. Then two days before we left Abeer told me her mother had insisted she watch some videos on how to deliver a baby just in case. I laughed. But Abeer explained that her sister-in-law had gone into labour when she was 23 weeks along. I stopped laughing. I contacted my midwife, who assured me that my pregnancy was not even remotely at risk for premature labour, and that it wasn’t something I should worry about.
So I didn’t worry. I steered the whole trip and I could feel how strong I was by the fact that I didn’t get tired at all. I could feel the difference in my body since my August trip. While the moon had lit up the whole night in August, the moon was new in September and the nights were dark. Maybe that’s why I somehow slept even better on this second trip. Looking back now, I think I could have comfortably tripped right up until the end of my second trimester. There was risk associated with both trips, of course, but I’m glad I didn’t let fear, and the homogeneity of pregnancy narratives, prevent me from going.
Thanks for reading Dry Spell. I’d love to know what you think; please feel free to leave a comment or reply to this email!